It's So Typical, Except Not Really
by Muchadoaboutnada
Summary: Kairi moves to Hollow Bastion to open up a florist's shop when she turns eighteen, because, of course she does. Truly, there's help for her almost everywhere she looks, but wouldn't you rather say you did this on your own? After they all said you couldn't?
1. situation

Kairi opens a florist's shop as soon as she turns eighteen, because, like, of _course_ she does. She doesn't have much of a resume and her education is _seriously_ lacking, anyway, and the only college in the city is, like, _really_ classist or whatever and doesn't _do_ financial aid, and there's no way in hell _she's_ ever going to get a scholarship, so.

But a boat ticket is pretty cheap and a small business loan in Hollow Bastion is _super_ easy to get, so here she is.

Her friends laugh at her when she tells them. They're like, "God, Kai, how stereotypical could you even _be_ ," and one of her old classmates even tells her she's 'conforming to harmful manifestations of femininity and contributing to the patriarchy,' or whatever. So she just turns her phone off for a few days.

She wants to call Sora and tell him everything, but they aren't really _speaking_ right now, so there goes that idea. Her heart hurts to think about him, but it also hurts to _not_ think about him, so that's that.

They'd danced around each other their whole childhood and early adolescence, and she'd waited for him when he left her, and she hadn't complained a bit, even when she'd gotten mixed up in some pretty _messed up shit_ , all because of him. Because he didn't _mean_ it, he'd never meant to hurt her. So she forgave him.

He kissed her on her seventeenth birthday, on the beach, under the stars, and she would have sworn her heart had stopped. Then, he'd gone away again. He and Riku both. She'd been left completely alone, again. This time, hopelessly in love, to boot.

Then he'd come back, only to sit her down and explain, haltingly, that he'd realized some things, that he and Riku had been spending so much time together and for the longest time they'd only been friends but _now_ we aren't sure and I _think_ I love him and of _course_ I love you too, Kai, but it's in a different way and anyway I'm really happy now but of course I don't want you to be sad but I'm just _so_ happy and you can understand that, can't you Kairi?

She'd felt her face close off and knew that he saw it, because how could you not? You can't spend your whole life with someone and not know when they're heartbroken. And Sora wanted to cry for her, to tell her how sorry he was, to assure her that everything would be okay, maybe even to take back everything he'd told her, but he couldn't. Obviously. Because he wasn't sorry. Not really.

Sorry for hurting her, of course, but he was so happy that he couldn't bring himself to be truly remorseful, and of course Kairi couldn't, like, blame him for that, but she also couldn't really be around him anymore. Or Riku, like, obviously.

You know, it would be one thing to have one friend who was always screwing up, but like, her two best friends in the entire world, the ones she'd built her entire life with, _both_ … It's like, they were always hurting her, but not really, because she wasn't the important one in the equation. Collateral damage, as it were. They had good excuses. But losing both of your best friends, _all the time?_

She couldn't really, like, _handle_ it.

Because Kairi isn't strong, not really. Not in any of the ways that matter. That's what she tells herself when she feels small and dark and hurt.

But she is strong enough not to cry as she looks back at her friends from the boat and they're _beaming_ at her but also at each other and trying so hard not to hold hands in front of her and they're failing desperately and they look so, _so_ happy. She doesn't cry.

Not really.


	2. arrangement

She lands in Hollow Bastion on a Friday morning and offers a tight-lipped smile to the captain, whose eyes linger on her just a _bit_ too long, and she goes to find somewhere to stay.

Like, yeah, _maybe_ she could have put a little more planning into this, sure, but also, _maybe_ you could shut your fucking mouth, Selphie, did you ever think of that?

She's got a backpack and a purse and a duffle bag as big as she is and that's it. She's got her life savings and everything she made working all those months of alone time in the local café. She's got her nerve and a vague idea of where to go, but that's it. That's all she's got. For the first time, Kairi feels something akin to fear.

She doesn't have a car or anything, or the money to buy one anytime in the near future, so she wants to find a place to live near the business district, but like, a hotel will _do_ for the night, she supposes. Anywhere to ditch her bags and start looking for somewhere to really call _home_.

So she finds herself standing at the front desk of an obnoxiously gaudy hotel in the busiest part of town, the third hotel she'd been to, and the guy is all like, 'We just don't have any _availability_ , sweetheart. Nowhere does," and she replies like, "Well what am I supposed to do tonight?" and he shrugs, like, "Maybe book in advance the next time you travel," and he picks up the phone and so Kairi supposes that is the end of that conversation.

So she hoists her bag over her shoulder and thinks again about calling Sora because she knows he has friends in this town. But she leaves her phone off and in her pocket and heads out into the street, because _damn it_ , she's going to prove that she doesn't need _Sora and Riku_ to succeed.

She takes a seat on a bench outside and heaves her duffle down onto the concrete between her feet and sighs, like "Well, this _sucks_ ," mostly to herself but if someone were to _overhear_ and take pity on her, she wouldn't exactly _complain_ , because as much as she doesn't want to need help from Sora and Riku, she's not above accepting help from kind strangers.

Either way, no one hears her, because as strange as her life is, it isn't quite a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Garner, not quite yet. But something else _does_ happen. Across the street, this girl makes eye contact with her, all squinty, and then she's waving like a lunatic like, "Kairi? Is that you?" so like. Kairi figures the universe is trying to make some stuff up to her.

The girl crosses the street carefully, waving at nearly every car and smiling at literally _everyone_ , and she wraps Kairi in a hug when she stands in greeting. Kairi's a little weirded out because this is strange but also she's not _too_ weirded out because this is also her life, and, well, sometimes things happen.

This girl is smiling so big and her long dark curls are shaking a little because she's shaking a little with excitement and she clasps her hands and starts off like, "I know this must be so bizarre for you but my name is Aerith and I'm a friend of Sora's, and I've seen so many photos of you I thought it must be you," and Kairi groans inwardly because of _course_ she's a friend of Sora's, "and I know we've never actually met but Sora had told us all to watch out for you if we ever met you in town, and now here you are! How great is that!"

She's positively beaming at Kairi and she just looks _so_ excited so Kairi says her nice to meet you's, and tries to think about how to get away when Aerith is like, "So what brings you to our home?"

So Kairi has to _explain_ everything about how Sora and Riku are in love now and she's so totally fine with it but it made some things hard, you know? And how she couldn't get into college and she doesn't know how to do much so she came here.

Then she has to explain that she doesn't know where she's going to stay and Aerith's eyes get big as saucers and she exclaims, "You can come stay with us! We've got plenty of room, and I just know Sora would be so upset if he found out we didn't give you a place, I insist!" And Kairi doesn't really feel super comfortable saying no, so she's saying yes, and thank you, and picks up her bag.

She meets everyone back at this old house and everyone kind of fawns over her, and it's uncomfortable, except for one guy who doesn't pay her any attention. Kairi immediately decides that he is her favorite. His name is Leon and he's about the most stoic person ever, and he doesn't comment once on Sora except to say that she's grown up a bit from the last photo they saw of her.

Everyone else treats her like an exotic animal, however, poking at her and prodding her with questions about the boys and their goings-on, and no one quite getting the hint that she doesn't feel like talking about them, so she tells everyone that she's got to get back out and try to find a shop space, and she ditches her bag and leaves before anyone can offer to come with her.

She's walking along the river for a good fifteen minutes before realizing that she does have to find a shop space but she also has to find, like, a _home_ , and that thought freaks her out, so she decides to look around a little bit later, and she goes to a bar.

It's eighteen and up so she lets the doorman X her hands and smiles and pretends she isn't immediately going to run to the bathroom and wash off the cheap marker.

She wanders through the crowd, feeling eyes on her, but it's, like, not a big deal because she's young and hot and invincible, so. She doesn't go to wash off the marker yet. She wanders a bit first.

She eventually takes a seat a bit out of the way and watches the mass of people, crossing and uncrossing her legs a few times, trying to decide if she even wants to get drunk.

When Sora and Riku were gone, Kairi spent a lot of time with Selphie, whose parents couldn't have cared less about what she did with her weekends. So she'd had some experience with alcohol, but her skills lay more in babysitting drunk teenage girls than actually doing the drinking herself. She'd always tried to stay mostly sober in case Selphie got too sloppy, which was most nights.

Therefore, _Do you even want to get drunk tonight?_ was a stupid ass question. And she bet she could get some decently cute local boy to pay for her drinks, so, win-win. With the decision made, she heads off to the bathroom to remove her x's.


	3. drunk

Unfortunately, the cheap marker turns out to be harder to get off than she'd thought. Not that that wouldn't have made sense if she'd spent, like, _any_ time thinking about it, but she hadn't. She'd assumed it was cheap, washable marker that would take one, maybe two pumps of soap to remove. Not so.

So the first time she sees Axel, her hands are nearly raw and she's got tears starting to form in her eyes.

Actually, she doesn't even see him. She's so busy fretting over her hands and wishing that she had some Neosporin that she didn't see him cross her path, not that he was the first to do so. But when they cross paths, he doesn't jump to avoid her like everyone else had. He meets her head on and she meets his chest with her nose and her face turns the color of her hair, though she can't tell if she's embarrassed or irritated as this man glowers down at her from, like, at least six foot two.

When she sees his face, she decides there are probably better words for what she is.

"Do you make a habit of getting underfoot?" he snaps at her, and she kind of stutters some kind of half-formed apology that's part apology and part excuse and part incoherent mumbling, then ducks her head and makes a beeline for her seat.

As she tries to dart past him, he grabs her shoulder and laughs and is like, "Calm down, lady, I'm messing with you. I like your hair." He points to the top of his own head, winking, and she grins to see a wild mess of bright red hair of his own. She pulls on a strand of her own, asking him, "Born or bottle?" and he gives this highly offended snort but he also doesn't answer her, so she laughs.

He asks if she's here with anyone or if she would want to grab a table with him and she winks and says she hasn't decided yet if she's got a date, but perhaps he could help her out?

He grins again and his teeth are _so_ white, like, if he were in an ad for teeth whitening, the product would bust because people would see him and be like, _No way, no one's teeth could be that white_. Like that.

Someone had taken her little out of the way table, but he steers her expertly through the crowd to a spot in the back where it's a little quieter and a little less bright. She sits down and looks up to find that he's nowhere in sight, so she's just about to chalk him up to some kind of weird hallucination until she spots him at the bar, which probably should have been her first guess as to what had happened, anyway. She sighs a little bit because _of course, Kairi, of course the first guy you meet here knows his way around the bar_.

He returns with a couple of glasses and raised his eyebrows, like, "I figured you might need a bar ambassador," looking pointedly at the bright red patches of skin on the backs of her hands. She feels her skin heat up again and mumbles something incoherent and grumpy, but she reaches for the drink, because why not? He smirks at her like, "Vodka cranberry okay? It seemed to fit with your hair," and she glares at him but it's only really halfhearted. It only occurs to her after her first sip that she didn't watch it be made and had no idea whether or not this guy had put anything in it, but she's already one sip in, so.

He's like, "My name's Axel, you should remember that, it's important," and she says, "Why's that?" and he winks and goes, "Because _I'm_ important." She laughs at that and introduces herself and properly apologizes for running into him because, "I'm really such a klutz, I guess I never grew into my feet," and then she thanks whatever god exists that he laughs because _c'mon Kairi that's a really weird thing to say to a guy and what if he's got a foot fetish?_

He asks standard questions and she gives pretty standard answers and says that she's new in town when he asks why he doesn't recognize her, he doesn't remember seeing her around before, and he remembers _everything_. She sips at her drink and rolls her eyes when he says he's got a thing for island girls and she's like, "Well I grew up mostly on the mainland, so."

He doesn't take his eyes off her and it's unsettling, but not because Kairi isn't used to it. She isn't exactly unaware of the effect she can have on men. She knows her hair is a draw for most of them, she has nice eyes and pretty skin that stays even and clear, for the most part. She's vaguely athletic looking in that way that some girls are, where you might assume that they played a sport, but you'd have no way to know which one. Is she a soccer player? A swimmer? A runner? Who knows?

Regardless. Kairi is used to being a subject of interest for men. It isn't especially fun or exciting anymore like it was when she was first starting to be complimented on her appearance, but it isn't harmful. So long as they didn't get too awful interested, Kairi could often get a pretty decent deal out of it. So if Axel were looking at her like another man might, it wouldn't be as odd. If he would look at her cleavage, or let his eyes wander down her legs as she stuck them out beside the table, or watched her throat as she spoke. But he didn't. His eyes stayed glued to hers nearly the whole time she talked.

And really, that was all to Kairi's benefit. She'd never seen eyes like his. Bright, cyan blue and lively as waves, full-lashed and expressive, they never left hers. When he would laugh, he reminded her of Riku, and the way the rest of his face could be smooth and impassive and you'd still know for sure he was laughing.

He keeps going back to the bar and ordering her different drinks, teasing her and trying to see if she can guess what's in the things he brings her, and he laughs loudly when she guesses rum and the answer is really tequila. _He's so lovely_ , she thinks while his head is tipped back and his eyes are squeezed shut, _I could cry. I won't, of course, because that's messy, but what a nice thought._

When he asks her questions, he smooths out his face and gives her no indication of how he feels about her answers until she's done talking, and then it changes all at once. It'll split open into a toothy grin, or he'll throw his head back and laugh, or he'll let a small, quiet smile slip onto his lips as he nods. It's very nearly off-putting, not knowing what he wants from his questions, but she supposes it makes her honest.

He asks her what she's in town for and at first she's like, "Uh, to live?" and then she realizes that that's, like, _rude_ to say and blushes and mumbles, "I want to sell flowers."

He tips his head to the side and waits for her to elaborate. She takes a big sip of her drink, pops an ice cube in her mouth, and tells him a little bit. She doesn't get too far into the gay-love-of-my-life thing but she does tell him that she only knows this one little place in the world and that she wants to do her own thing. He smiles like that was _just_ the answer he was looking for.

Then he asks her where she lives because it's getting a little bit late and do you want me to walk you home? When you're ready to go, that is, there's no rush.

She doesn't quite hear him because maybe she's not quite listening but she doesn't answer and asks him instead if she can touch his hair? Because she _thinks_ it'll feel fried and rough but he keeps running his hand through it so it _must_ be soft and she just wants to see, but he raises an eyebrow at her hand halfway across the table to him and tells her she can touch it all night if she wants to.

Almost immediately he squints at her, like, "How old did you say you were, princess?" and she says eighteen and he nods again and bites his lip and doesn't say anything so like, she doesn't know if that's good or bad.

A few minutes later they're laughing about something ridiculous and she startles out of nowhere and squeals, "Wait! Oh no, I can't go home with you, they'll be expecting me," and here she drops her voice conspiratorially, "I only just got here today, you know. I don't exactly have a place of my own yet."

He rolls his eyes like, "Oh, okay, fine, but where are you staying so I know if I can walk you home or if I need to call you an Uber or something," and she smiles and tells him about Aerith and Leon and Cid and the rest of them and about halfway through he gets this very not-nice smile on his face, like a twisted kind of smile and just nods and breathes and for the first time tonight, there's an uncomfortable silence between them.

She crosses her arms over her chest like, "What's the matter with you?" and he smiles but not all the way and mutters, "Nothing, princess. Do you know those people?"

That kind of pulls her up short because she _doesn't._ Of course she trusts friends of Sora's but the truth is she doesn't know these people. They're actual real life strangers but she can't exactly _do_ anything because all of her _stuff_ is there but now she really doesn't _want_ to stay with them and she doesn't _know_ what to _do._

So instead of making a decision or really doing anything at all, she kind of just picks at her cuticles and watches Axel from underneath her eyelashes. It suddenly occurs to her that she's pretty drunk, and also that she's probably being very, very stupid, but that thought was rude so she pushes it from her mind.

Axel watches her emotions play out all across her face, laughing to himself because _god, it's hysterical_ , she wears her heart on her sleeve in a way he's never seen before. He can actually pinpoint the exact moment when she realizes that she's committed to staying with strangers and when she first thinks that she might not want to do that. It's mesmerizing and the last thing he wants is to take advantage of the fact that she's an open book, but I mean.

Kairi looks up from her nail beds to see a slow smirk take over Axel's face like a slow-burning flame and she's confused, but he smiles and jerks his head towards the door and says, "Come take a walk with me," in a way that's kind of like a request, but a request that he's pretty sure she'll say yes to. She thinks very briefly that this might be a bad idea but she follows him out the door anyway and his legs are _so_ long and he's _so_ tall and she's having to jog to keep up with him.

She almost turns around and starts home, but hey, _what's one more dumb thing to do_? she reasons, and Axel laughs just as surely as if he'd heard her say it out loud. Kairi decides then and there that she would _very much_ like to hear that laugh again, and that's what she's going to do.

* * *

Hi friends! Thank you for taking the time to read this little nonsense! I've had this ship since I was about 13 years old and let me tell ya, I'm gonna go down with it. Anyways, leave me a review or shoot me a message! I love getting to know you guys!

much love


	4. help

Axel leads Kairi along the river quietly for several minutes until all of a sudden they're in a very secluded area and all she can hear is the lapping of the water against the bank and the night-time noises of some far-off bird and she's looking around nervously to see how alone they really are but he chuckles and grabs her hand. They amble on together towards the edge of the water and he's slipping off his shoes and rolling up the ankles of his jeans and Kairi is _struck_ by how oddly intimate the moment is, but she follows suit.

The two of them settle on the bank and dip their feet into the water and Kairi's like, "Hey, not to be, like, _rude_ , or anything, but where are we?" and Axel slings an arm around her shoulders amiably and just hums low in his throat. She huffs loudly and crosses her arms over her chest.

He grins and sinks down onto his back, patting the ground next to him and making this stupid face until she can't manage to keep the smile off her face and lays down, fanning her hair out behind her. He reaches out with one hand and grabs a section of her hair, twirling it around his long fingers.

"What are we doing?" she whispers after a few minutes, because it seems like the time to do so, and he shushes her like, "We're having a moment, aren't we? Like, I don't know, look at the stars or something."

Of course she's like, "Okay? I've lived on an island for most of my life, I've seen better stars than these," until he shoots her this withering stare and props himself up on his elbows and then she quiets down.

"Shut up, princess, I'm trying to help you," he's like, and she raises her eyebrows in a way that she hopes looks _questioning_ and not, like, _wrong_ , so he rolls his eyes and continues, muttering, "I was going to show you a place. Like, for you. It's a shop, with a loft. I've had my eye on it for a little while and it sounded like exactly what you needed, so I figured. I'd show it to you."

She laughs at first because like, "Well, we're nowhere _near_ the business district," but he purses his lips at her and she smiles and sits up and pats his shoulder, like, "I really, _really,_ appreciate it, but I have to do this on my own, you know?" He very nearly _growls_ at her, but he reaches down to ruffle her hair and sighs.

"I _thought_ maybe we could have a moment, I mean, I've spent the whole night trying to get you liquored up so you wouldn't notice me staring," he remarks frankly and she blushes, _hard_ , deep pink all along her cheeks, and she tries, _really tries_ , to play it off, like, "You think I didn't notice? Cute," but he totally Doesn't Buy It, and she wouldn't either, because she totally didn't notice, because she just figured he was attentive, because staring is something creepy, and she would have never described him as creepy.

But hadn't she thought in that bar that she wouldn't mind the staring if he was the one doing it?

Axel stands up, dusting himself off, before offering Kairi his hand to help her up. She smiles widely at him and goes to collect her shoes, stretching her arms and yawning. "I really, really do want to thank you, Axel. I don't know how long it's been since someone has done something nice like that for me, just for me, you know?"

He scowls at her and mutters, "Yeah, well, I wasn't doing it only for you. For all you know, I've got all kinds of ulterior motives. Maybe I was just doing all of this so that I could kiss you." But then he cocks his head and snorts and she's like, "Well you wouldn't have had to do all that, you're into theatrics, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I know it, princess," he kind of grunts, but then he offers her a little smile and gives her shoulders a squeeze. "Guess this means you aren't staying over with me? Since you gotta do everything on your own now?" He winks at her and she goes just a little bit pale because she'd not thought about it and it's really pretty late and she _really_ doesn't feel like going back to the house with Aerith, for whatever reason, and she hadn't thought this _through_ , but that's honestly okay, because, like, she's also _drunk_ and she's allowed to make a few mistakes she wouldn't normally make.

"I mean, if you have a couch I could crash on, I'd be, just, _super_ grateful?" she half-asks and offers him what she hopes is a winning smile. He blows a sigh towards the sky that ruffles a few loose hairs, but he drops his hand from around her shoulders, grabs her hand, and lopes off, muttering something indistinct under his breath.

Kairi keeps up as well as she can, nearly tripping over her own feet a few times, but somehow managing. He doesn't talk for a little while and Kairi thinks _maybe I should be grateful_ , but all she feels is a little bit guilty, because _maybe I should have just let him show me the stupid shop_. But she doesn't talk either and takes to studying him while they walk, as much as she can while trying to stay on her feet.

He's far more interesting than her feet, though. He lopes along with a kind of easy grace that seems incongruous with his too-long limbs, and she thinks for just a moment that he looks a little bit like a cat, so that when he looks back over his shoulder at her she's grinning like a wild woman. He quirks an eyebrow up at her but he smiles too.

When they pass the bar, Kairi stops and blows it a little kiss, and Axel waits until she's walking again before he's like, "What was that?" and she tips her head back and laughs and says, "I was thanking the bar for delivering you to me," and then _he's_ the one that's blushing, delicate and pink, and she pulls him down to her level and kisses him sweetly on the cheek.

That likely wouldn't have been all, except that then she trips over an uneven cobblestone and very nearly loses her feet and then she decides, probably best to focus on the walking and the not-dying until she's stationary.

* * *

Hi friends! So this chapter isn't quite as long as last chapter, but in my defense, I edited chapter 3 without realizing I had already posted it, so I already used up all my good editing and filler ideas tonight, so. I'm not sure exactly how much I like this, but I was going for a very warm and fuzzy drunk feeling, drunk like champagne and fruity things, which reminds me very heavily of Kairi. As always, thanks for reading!

much love


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